For Us Humans Page 4

  The airport was clean and bright on the inside. Outside in the pick-up zone for arrivals it was dingy and dark. The pilot had said it was 85 degrees, but standing there with bus engines roaring, it didn’t feel like 85 back East. Here it was dry as a bone.

  It didn’t feel like I was breathing water.

  The car that braked in front of the curb was, to my everlasting shock, not black. It was a silver Dodge Charger. Still had tinted windows. Gotta hand it to the feds: They like their stereotypes.

  “Mister Fortel?” A balding Hispanic guy in his forties was visible through the open passenger window.

  “That’s me.”

  “Agent Ernesto Loya. Welcome to Denver. Get in.”

  Polite, in an obnoxious, government-knows-best kind of way. I opened the back door and dumped my two bags into the seat: a black laptop computer satchel and a bright blue duffel that weighed a ton. Loya was kind enough not to pull away from the curb until I got in the passenger seat, though he did put his foot to the accelerator long before the seat belt catch snapped.

  “So, uh, thanks for the ride.”

  Loya nodded. The Charger’s engine roared as he effortlessly changed lanes and brought us through the winding turns of the exit ramps. Soon we were on Peña Boulevard, headed toward the city proper.

  My cell buzzed. No ringtones for me. It was bad enough listening to everyone else’s obnoxious music when they got calls. I woke it with the power button.

  “Friend of yours?” Loya’s voice was mellow.

  “Sort of.” I was surprised Laci texted, frankly. Her picture was just as pretty as in person and smiling more than the last time I saw her. But the message was just as nasty as her parting expression. So much for wondering if we’d get a chance at a repeated—

  “Laci?” Loya’s eyes shifted sideways for a moment.

  Thank you, interrupter of trains of thought. I tucked the phone away. “None of your business.”

  “Like we don’t have access to your phone records.”

  “What?” That steamed me right away. Not even Isaac would do that.

  “DEXA needs to know you’re trustworthy.”

  The inside of the car smelled sickeningly sweet. What was in that cup in the center console anyway? Starbucks, chai latte. “Yeah, well, the FBI office in Boston seems to think I’m okay enough for you.”

  “Good for them.” Loya was all smiles. Kind of like Carpenter.

  People who smile too much were always hiding something.

  I preoccupied myself gawking at the cookie-cutter townhouses that were packed in close to the airport.

  “Have you been to Denver before, Mister Fortel?”

  “Not since ’99.” That’s about all he’d get on that topic. “Long enough ago to see you guys managed to cram a boatload of new housing out this way.”

  “Yes, well, since 6/16, you would not believe the traffic DIA has experienced. Everyone wants to move closer to Denver. The city has its hands full trying to prevent crowding and sprawl simultaneously.” Loya glanced upward. He pointed overhead. “Here goes some of that traffic now.”

  Oh, got you beat, chief—I’d already heard the hum. It wasn’t like any machinery you’d recognize. The vibrations from whatever lifting engines the qwaddos used on their ships sent a buzz through every bone in your body. You could hear the windshield shivering. The qwaddo ship rushed overhead, angling up into the sky on a course parallel to the highway. Why did they have to do everything bigger than us? The thing made a 747 look like something a kid folded out of paper at recess. The qwaddo ship was one big triangle with some kind of pod things on each corner. It had a hull colored soft gray, festooned with clusters of hexagonal patterns that appeared to crawl and reflected blue sky like mirrors. Orange and blue running lights flickered in triads along the leading edge.

  “Wondrous creation, isn’t it?” Loya shook his head. “Four hundred feet long. The boys in Tech Assessment tell me it can top Mach 8 in the atmosphere. Don’t even ask about its velocity in space. If you’re an astronaut at heart, it will make you swoon.”

  “Not bad.” Inwardly, the little boy who still dreamed about flying to the stars bounced around and clapped his hands. Keep it to yourself, Caz. “Are we off to your lovely cubicle for another briefing?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. All the mission-specific intel has been forwarded to your email. Agent Rutherford will be your contact.”

  “Oh.” I checked my phone. Yep, there it was. “Well, let me give it a look.”

  “That can wait until after we get to the office.”

  “Is that where I meet your Agent Rutherford? Are you guys jealous that FBI agents get to be ‘special’ and you don’t?”

  Loya gave me a sour look. Kind of a mother face, actually. “You won’t meet him, per se. Pretty much the only way to get ahold of him is to text him.”

  That made me laugh. “What, he doesn’t answer the phone the old-fashioned way?”

  Loya didn’t laugh. Oh. He wasn’t kidding. “Rutherford is a strange one. But he’s dedicated and very, very good at his job. He was one of the first recruits when Congress formed DEXA after 6/16.”

  Traffic wasn’t too fierce. The car’s display read 2:30. No rush hour then. “So your counterpart Carpenter back in Beantown said something about ‘hounders.’ ”

  “Ah, yes. They’re the Ghiqasu equivalent of an investigative service. They take all crime seriously on their homeworld, and because of that, the Consociation—the Jinn, especially—task them with tracking down lawbreakers.”

  “Everywhere?”

  “Anywhere the Consociation’s reach extends.”

  That’s some reach. Four hundred star systems, at last count. “They must have some great informants to track criminals from planet to planet.”

  “No, that’s not it.”

  “How do they do it, then?”

  Loya smiled. “You’ll see.”

  I don’t deal well with people who flaunt their knowledge, then lock me out of what I need to know. Loya was Example Number One. Ticked me off. And we all know how shy I can be about sharing my opinion. “Listen, man, I really don’t care about any sort of problem the qwaddos have with—”

  “No. Never ‘qwaddo.’ ” Well. Found Loya’s button to push. His hands even tightened up on the steering wheel. “You refer to them by their race, Ghiqasu, or by their nationality if they specify. Take this as a warning, Mister Fortel—these aren’t animals. These are people. Like us.”

  “Doubt that.”

  “They know xenophobia when they smell it.”

  That caught me. “Smell it? You mean hear it.”

  Loya didn’t acknowledge the comment. “You keep your manners about you and try not to give DEXA a bad name. We have our hands full enough as it is keeping relations decent between our people and theirs.”

  My teeth clenched—behind my lips, that is. Not about to give him any sense of satisfaction. “Thanks for the talk. Do I get detention now? You planning to unfriend me on Facebook or something?”

  “No. You’re going to meet the Ghiqasu Hounder in fifteen minutes. He’s joining you immediately for this investigation.”

  Oh.

  <<<>>>

  The Department of Extraterrestrial Affairs had its headquarters east of downtown Denver, out at the site of the old Stapleton Airport. Was slated to be turned into a bunch of clothing outlets, restaurants, and cafes—you know, because Denver needed more of those—but after 6/16 the government snatched up a bunch of land there. Fast forward fifteen years and the complex had four wings. The center building was huge, made up of three pyramids with the tops chopped off. The glass sides reflected the sunny skies perfectly.

  I stood at one of the windows of Loya’s office, looking north. Another of those qwaddo spaceships went sweeping across the sky, a dark dagger on cobalt blue. A line of thunderclouds rolled across the wide-open land between C-70 and DIA. Even with the windows sealed, I could sense the smell of rain on the dry land. You never forget t
he real thing.

  More memories. Ally.

  “Mister Fortel, stop standing there like the heads on Easter Island.” Loya sounded in way too good a mood. “I pride myself in combating stress and you are singlehandedly upsetting the balance between work and relaxation.”

  Duh. The man sipped on his chai latte and leaned back at his desk. It was teak. And surrounded by three potted plants. Those weren’t the only ones. He had more ferns and flowers in here than a greenhouse at its spring sale. Did I mention there were three pictures of his dogs on the shelf behind him? All framed.

  “You know, I was just standing here thinking of the smell outside, and instead we’re stuck here in the middle of a jungle.” I crossed to the other side of the room. He had some nice framed photographs of western forests and lakes on the wall. One of them could have been from the Sierra Madres.

  “Very funny. You should relax. I’m told—” His iPhone’s screen flashed. Loya tapped the screen. “Ah. Yes, he’s arrived.”

  “The qwaddo.”

  Loya made a face.

  “Right, Ghiqasu, the Hounder, whatever.” I touched the picture frame nearest me, off to the right. Yeah, definitely the Sierra Madres. Wonder if Ally still went camping in them?

  A double knock at the door. Loya’s chair creaked as he rose. Footsteps muffled on the carpet. “Ah, welcome. Enter, please. Mister Fortel?”

  That was my cue. I turned around.

  The qwaddo stood in the doorway. No more than three feet from me.

  Unreal. When I was lying on my parents’ carpet at our house in New Jersey, watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, I never once guessed I’d grow up to be shaking-hands distance from an alien.

  Never had seen one up close. Yeah, I know, there were a bunch of them back in Government Center. But frankly, they’d always been at the periphery of my life. Given the way their whole species irked me, you can’t blame a guy for ignoring them. The skin had a hue of red brick. The qwaddo’s face had armored plates running from the top of a large snout to what I supposed was his forehead. Like an armadillo’s, you know?

  There was also a pale yellow circle, with three triangles around it, painted or tattooed or whatever halfway up the armor from his snout. His hair, goldenrod and brown with black stripes, reminded me of a tiger’s hide. The eyes—they were amber, and you could feel the intelligence behind them. Just like looking at a man. You knew you were getting appraised.

  He was a half a foot taller than me. The clothing was, well, nothing extravagant. Who knows what they were made of? Slate gray shirt and forest green pants, with short sleeves for all four arms. The upper arms were longer by a hand’s width than the lower pair, thicker around and all ropy with muscles. The lower two seemed more stunted in their growth. His legs, though, had a weird twisted shape to them and looked powerful. Built for running, maybe, or jumping. The—what were they, boots? Shoes?—hinted that he only had two big toes and a third at the back. Three, then, just like the fingers on each hand.

  “Mister Fortel.” You could feel the warning from Loya behind just those two words. The guy could put more expression in his voice than my mom. “This is Aphu Nil Hemilh Jeq, a Prime Investigator for the Consociation’s Retrieval and Justice Team.”

  Wow. That sure rolled off the tongue.

  The qwaddo splayed all four hands at his sides. “Tell your story,” he said. The tones were rich and sonorous.

  I blinked. What?

  His nostrils flared. He leaned in and put that big snout really, really close to my face.

  “Hold up.” Major invasion of personal space. I put my hand up against his chest.

  A heartbeat. Very slow, but very strong. Instantly I knew it was a bad move.

  The alien’s arms tensed. They curled back, his hands grouping into fists. The eyes narrowed. And an odor—musky, kind of like aftershave but not as jarring—wafted over me. His upper lip curled.

  Those were some big teeth. Sharp ones too.

  Loya fixed the alien with a stern gaze. “Prime Nil, he meant no offense by the touch. Your closeness crossed his boundary without permission, and he reacted defensively.”

  The alien looked from Loya to me. I met the gaze, eerie as it was. Eye contact was always key to owning a conversation with people, but I wondered if that was true of aliens too.

  “Mister Fortel, Prime Nil was testing your scent,” Loya said. “His request for your story was the precursor, and your lack of response to the question indicated acceptance.”

  “Well, if someone like you had maybe told me this was a first-­contact ritual, I might’ve said something. But no one gave me the DEXA brochure on four-armed critter customs.”

  Loya sighed.

  I’d fully expected the alien to hit me. Except he didn’t appear as mad as when I touched him. Instead he tipped his head side to side—right, left, right. Okay.

  “If this is the best storyteller your government can send me, this mission carries a foul smell,” he rumbled.

  That sounded like an insult to me. “Speaking of smells . . .”

  “All right, that’s enough.” Loya put his hand on my chest and gave a push.

  At least, he tried to give a push. My right hand grabbed his wrist and bent it back, just not painfully. Took a sec but I realized this was a federal agent, after all. That was enough to interrupt the reflex.

  “Do not touch me.” I made sure he heard every word clearly. My trainer would be happy with my reaction. Quick but in control. Control was good.

  “Very well.” Loya jerked his hand to free himself of my grip. I let the sap go because otherwise he wasn’t getting loose.

  A low-pitched sound rumbled from deep in the qwaddo’s—okay, the Hounder’s—chest. But he didn’t open his mouth. Good thing too. Not sure I wanted to see those teeth again. “This does not appear to be the traditional greeting exchanged between human males.”

  Did he just joke?

  Loya chuckled. Some of the tension fled the situation. Even I felt more at ease.

  “Perhaps we should be seated?” He gestured to his chairs.

  I took the one furthest from the door and rolled it back a few feet. Not quite to the window but close. That smell from the Hounder was peculiar. Not bad, not foul, just odd.

  The Hounder sat in the other open chair, opposite Loya at his desk. His lower hands gripped his knees—seemed like he had regular knees—and his upper hands lay palm down on the backs of his lower hands. All his movements were smooth.

  Loya gestured at me. “Mister Fortel is one of the foremost art recovery specialists in the country. He comes highly recommended from the FBI in Boston.”

  Nothing like flattery to get the ball rolling. Better play nice for now. “You can’t argue with a reference like that, even if it isn’t from the Lord on high.” I smiled my best smile.

  The Hounder looked me right in the eye. So he knows that trick too, does he? Or does eye contact mean something else among this species? “The Lord on high.”

  “Yeah. It’s a joke.”

  “In reference to what? It smells strange.”

  “It’s—well, it refers to the God of Christianity.”

  “The one in which you profess belief.”

  Loya was absolutely silent now. Great. Heat rushed to my cheeks. There wasn’t a good way to explain why I had just cracked a funny about God. Thought about asking Him if He understood, but that didn’t seem to be a good idea.

  The Hounder stared at me. Learned something new about them: They don’t blink often. Almost never.

  “Anything else?” I crossed my arms.

  “Not for now. Qas will guide me to the right time.”

  Loya leaned forward, elbows sliding on the desk. His chai stayed untouched. We must have his full attention. “Qas. That is your source of wisdom, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Loya seemed to expect more but nothing else came. Instead he blinked and smiled, then blinked some more.

  Time to rescue the sap. Even if I didn�
��t particularly like him. “Hey, Nil, was it?”

  “Prime is my title or rank, and Nil is my individual name.”

  “Good for you. Prime Nil, let me be straight up with you. I want this job. The money’s good and the prestige—well, it doesn’t get bigger than recovering Jinn art. It’s a beautiful work.”

  “I agree.”

  “See?” I smirked at Loya. “We’ve got that in common.” Loya frowned.

  “For your further reference, it is called the Sozh Uqasod by my people. The Jinn have a name which cannot be pronounced by your species.”

  “I bet that makes their mothers proud. You just keep this in mind: Do your bit to get us to the bad guy, and I’ll find out where’s he’s got the art stashed.”

  “It is not that simple. I must retain the lead in this investigation.”

  “Uh, yeah, that is not going to happen.” Come on, what did Loya think, I was going to bow meekly and let this four-armed critter run the show? If that was the case they could both bend over and kiss my . . . feet.

  “Let me posit a question: Can you track a sentient being by their smell alone?”

  “No. Obviously.” I pointed a finger at his face. “My turn: Does your industrial-strength nose help you blend in with the guys who rip off millions in art for their personal gain and let you get close enough to them so that, after months of lying and pretending to be someone you’re not, you get the satisfaction of seeing them get busted?”

  The qwaddo sat stock still. He clenched both his lower hands into fists. The upper hands stayed open. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t quite ready to fight. I figured he’d get all four ready if that were the case.

  Loya rapped his knuckles on the desk. His face was pinched, as if he saw some litter left on a sidewalk. “Gentlemen, please, this is unnecessary. Retrieval and Justice has expressed a willingness to share lead, Prime Nil. I’m certain your supervisor informed you.”

  The alien tilted his chin up. Arrogance or a simple affirmative? Man, I really could use an actual qwaddo brochure like I just joked about. “They have. This does not mean I concur, but I will obey.”

  “That’s a good start.” Loya fixed me with a stern gaze. “And you recognize that DEXA wants to cooperate fully—and I do mean fully—with Consociation’s law enforcement officers in this and all cases involving crimes against aliens on Earth?”